“….Once again, the Linux community struggled to balance
personal predictions about the Linux operating system against the
day-to-day movements of its leading commercial exponent, the
Durham, N.C.-based Red Hat Inc.“
“Rumors about a potential acquisition of Toronto-based Corel
Corp. Inc. sent both companies’ market value on a two-day roller
coaster ride. Red Hat executives had the sense to remain
tight-lipped, but they couldn’t prevent a flurry of speculation.
Linux-watchers have long been concerned with Red Hat’s repressed
Microsoft-like tendencies, and they enthusiastically assisted day
traders in probing the Red Hat corporate psyche.”
“The resulting psychological profile depicted a company torn
between making the best use of its burgeoning market cap–$13
billion as of Tuesday’s market close–and protecting its
open-source image. Red Hat is a staunch upholder of free software
principles, namely the GNU General Public License, the license
governing both the Linux kernel and its exoskeleton of compilers,
debuggers and editing tools. It also has investors to please. What
remains to be diagnosed is which purpose is more important to Red
Hat, and does Corel fit in.”